A Desforra da Imaginação
«An awful quarrel: “Whoever sees cakes, can’t see painting!” she screamed. – “Whoever sees painting, can’t paint cakes!” I screamed back. Both absolutely livid. And then I painted the notorious portrait». (1)
An artist with a unique body of work, produced with a deliberate, tenacious desire to break free from the rules of the time and the artistic milieu he bore witness too, António Areal (1934-1978) is a true maverick in the history of Portuguese art. The exhibition THE AVENGING IMAGINATION presents remarkable, mostly unseen works, with the precise intention of introducing an artistic talent worthy of our consideration, who never stopped contesting and sewing discord in the critical discourse, in a flagrant desire to circumvent the accepted ideological mores associated with the practice of painting and drawing, even to this day.
(1) «Portrait of the Trivial, Prosaic, Figurative and Natural Life of Josefa d’Óbidos. A Hyper-Realistic Chronicle without Dramatisation, Fiction or Theory», by António Areal, November 1971.
Vasco Stocker de Vilhena
